pla

Friday, July 10, 2009

It's been an interesting week or so. A virus overtook my Dell Dimension 24oo and I learned first-hand about the Blue Screen Of Death. My attempts to fix my system may actually have been working, but I wanted to use a restore point as well, and said virus deterred me from entering safe mode. So I got the 'bright' idea of changing my startup so that it would automatically default to safe mode. Unfortunately, that meant that I couldn't get past the Blue Screen, and that's when I discovered that I'd have to do a full reinstall! Had to get the Windows XP disk from Dell, then found out that 'repair' might allow me to save some files, but removed my 'F' drive anyway (which, thankfully, had most of my files on it!), and went without a computer for a few days. It is AMAZING how much I do relies heavily upon the computer! Even movies/TV shows I almost always watch on the computer, and most are archived as data disks (thankfully not ON the computer!), which cannot be played/viewed by any other means! Since my system came fully installed, my walk-through with the heavily-accented guys from Dell Support was my first experience in loading the Windows XP operating system. Took awhile.Found out that the 'repair' option did not work, and that a full reinstall was in order. All data/files/etc. lost. Then, my Internet provider, for my protection, decided I needed a new password to get online, and THAT took awhile. THEN I reinstalled my 'F' drive, and most files appeared to be inaccessible. Not only did they hit me with 'access denied', but the contents of the folders were supposedly 0 bytes! However, my antivirus scanner read the 'lost' files for me. I just couldn't read them or access them. A bit frustrating, but better than thinking they were just 'gone'. Some research provided me with the answer, which was that I needed to go into safe mode and take control of the files through the security tab that appears under properties only in safe mode. And...it worked! A fun week. Just for the heck darn of it, I give you Nous model Tommy Herd: